Indiecade East (Saturday) Recap

I was able to shoot up to NYC for Indiecade on Saturday for a few hours. The festival is the first attempt at moving it East so there were no awards, but rather the games showcased were the winners and finalists from the October festival in Culver City. Here’s a full list of games playable at the festival.

Cart Life

I had a very interesting conversation with Richard Hofmeier about his IGF nominated game, Cart Life. The game is inspired by some of his own mundane jobs over the past 4 years. He created it without any real knowledge of the indie gaming scene and was then ‘discovered’ and encouraged to submit the game to the IGF (despite being completed in 2011). The game is free from his website.

Well Played, Session 1: 30 Flights of Loving

This was one of only 2 panels that I attended. It was a complete walk through and analysis of Blendo Games’ 30 Flights of Loving by Drew Davidson of ETC Press. Drew played through the game live and explained his interpretation of this cinematic games story, timeline, and theme. Brendon Chung, the creator of the game, was there to comment but didn’t reveal much about the game’s story and left it up to interpretation. Rather than taint your own experience, I advise that you pickup the game and experience for yourself. I should also mention that the game is nominated at the IGF this year for the Excellence in Narrative and an honorable mention for the Nuovo Award and the Seamus McNally Grand Prize.

Well Played, Session 2: Hokra

In this panel, married couple Kevin Cancienne and Margaret Robertson talked about the competitive game, HOKRA and how their relationship was built on games they could play together. Hokra is a digital sports game for 4 people (2 on 2). The game is best described as 2 on 2 soccer. There’s 1 ball and the goal is to possess the ball and sit in your goal to score. Of course other players are dashing at you to stun and steal the ball from you and score it in their own goal. I had the pleasure of playing it and the core gameplay mechanic and sport is exhilarating and addictive. Keep an eye on Hokra since the creator hinted at some cool new features such as new levels and particular player types.

Philly was also well represented there with Cipher Prime Studios. They were nominated for their game Splice, but they also showed off a new game prototype called, InTake. The game is an action arcade shooter game that came out of a prototype as the studio works on Auditorium Duet.

That’s a quick recap of my afternoon at IndieCade East. Keep up the Indie Love and Support and let’s bring back Indiecade to the East Coast next year.